When someone cuts you off in traffic...
I remember it almost like it was yesterday, my first semester in college, the class was Introduction to Aviation in the year 2011. The professor I had would go on to be my Aviation Law professor someday, as I thoroughly enjoyed his lessons. Despite the class being aviation-related, the lesson is completely universal. Some lectures, you just don’t forget, and this was one of them.
I remember him getting up in front of the classroom, on the far left side, grabbing a red marker, ready to write on the clean white dry-erase board, and began his lecture…
“I want you to imagine you’re driving down the road on your way to class, by yourself, listening to your music, and suddenly someone cuts you off. They merges right in front of you, and don’t even look or notice! Geeze, that person is just a _______. You fill in the blank.”
Several of my classmates shouted out some ideas...
"Meanie! Jerk!"
Without writing anything on the white board, the professor interjected, asking us in a half teasing, half sarcastic tone...
“You’re all college aged, over 18, driving in your car, by yourself, and the best thing you can come up with is “jerk?” I don’t buy it. Go ahead, shout out what you actually are saying in your car, because I highly doubt that it’s 'jerk' and 'meanie'.”
The professor was talking with a tone that seemed like he really wanted us to get passionate about the matter, like he was provoking us, almost.
Unsure if this was some sort of trap, the room had a half awkward silence going on… but after a slight hesitation, someone had the guts to shout out...
"A$$hole!"
The professor shouted back, egging us on in his energetic way...
“Good, what else?”
"Moron!"
"Dipshit!"
"Idiot!"
"Douchebag!"
"Dickhead!"
"Screwup!"
(There were a lot more, but I think you get the idea here, so I’ll refrain from listing an all-inclusive list of curse words on the interwebs.)
After a pretty good list was compiled on the board (the class had mostly filed up the better left half of the whiteboard), the professor moved over to the next section of the whiteboard, and asked us...
“Why do you think people cut you off in traffic?”
Now that everyone was loosened up a little bit, the answers flowed a little more naturally out of the mouths in the classroom...
"On their phone!"
"Not paying attention!"
"Bad driver!"
"Eating food!"
"Putting on makeup!"
"Getting dressed!"
"Changing the music!"
The reasons flew up on the board faster than the professor could even write them down, but he sure tried his best to keep up, all while keeping the energy in the room flowing.
After that section of the whiteboard was filled up with reasons people cut us off in traffic, the professor set down the red marker, and slowly and calmingly walked to the opposite side of the room, something clearly on the professor’s mind, but none of us knew what to expect next.
The professor then picked up a blue marker, glanced back to the previously compiled list of nicknames and reasons, looked back across the room, took a shallow sigh, and asked in a deliberate but still slightly chipper tone...
“Now... YOU cut someone off in traffic. What do you call yourself?”
The room went silent, and a quick glance around showed most of the class had dipped their heads in dismay, realizing the lesson at hand, that now required no explanation at all. The professor smiled.
The perspective of the group had shifted. Suddenly it wasn’t about the person anymore, and more about the behavior. “I couldn’t possibly be cutting people off in traffic on purpose>” we all thought to ourselves...
After a few moments of thought, someone quietly piped up...
"Distracted!"
Followed closely by...
"Having a bad day!"
Despite the feebly answers that were given as rather lame excuses as to why it would be acceptable to cut someone off while driving to class, the point of the exercise was blatantly clear to everyone in the room.
The professor barely had to explain, but did anyways, that when you’re the one cutting someone off, you’re “just having a bad day.” But when someone else cuts you off, we assume it was clearly and unequivocally with malicious and harmful intent, and that the offender is stupid, idiotic, and incompetent. The oh-so-simple, yet so difficult to follow lesson has been summarized in famous quotes before...
“Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.”
“What comes around goes around.”
“Treat others the way you want to be treated.”
Sooner or later, we’ll all be wrong. We will all be in a position to be asking for mercy or waving the white flag. Be the bigger person when it matters, and trust that it’ll come back around someday. Nobody is perfect, for we are all human.
published... December 2017